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Monday, May 28, 2012

THE 1940 U.S. CENSUS: THE WHITES2

In a previous post about finding my White family members in the 1940
census I told about finding my great grandmother Pauline (Offinger) White
living in the Mattapan section of Boston with the family of  my grandaunt
Elizabeth(White)Biaggi. I still haven't found my grandfather Edward F White
Sr on the 1940 Census, but I did find another one of his siblings, his older
brother Charles.

Charles William White was born 5Mar 1898.  He was living at home with his
parents and siblings up to the 1920 Census, but by 1930 he was married to
Katherine Goonan with two daughters, Virginia age 6 and Muriel age 4.
The family was living on Brookdale St not far away from his parents home
on Florence St., and working as a clerk at the railroad. He'd been employed
there since at least 1918 when he'd listed his job on the WWI draft registration
as clerk for the Boston Albany R.R. at South Station in Boston.




Being a railroad clerk seemed to have been a good job in the Great Depression
because from what I can tell from the 1940 Census great uncle Charles was
doing quite well by then. He was now a rate clerk for the railroad which meant
he was a 20+ year employee and the relatively young age of 42. He was making
$1750 a year which probably helped him purchase the home he now owned on
Brookdale St which was valued at $2000.The family had also grown by another
two children, a daughter Frances born in 1932 and son Charles Jr born in 1934.
Brother-in-law Patrick Goonan was also living with Charles and Kathryn, working
as a helper on a coal truck. So Charles had weathered the Depression in pretty
good shape for someone with only an eighth grade education.




I'm hoping to find entries on the 1940 Census for my grandfather's other
siblings, and when I do I'll post them here.

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